Trickskin

by Amelia R. Moore

  Loken narrowed his eyes, irritated that he couldn’t simply locate the man, teleport in to retrieve him, and teleport out. He wanted to redeem his name, but how could he do that if they kept pairing him with other agents?

  “I work best alone,” he replied tersely, voice chilled.

  Callum’s face remained impassive. “Dismissed, Agent Locke.”

  Fury twisted inside of Loken, and he wrestled with the urge to show this human he couldn’t be brought to heel. He was a scion of Rellaeria, far beyond this man’s authority and jurisdiction!

  Except he’d forsaken his home world, hadn’t he? It had never been his to begin with, and this was his life now. While he wasn’t desperate for work, currently this job was all he had. His pride was one of the only things he had left...but was it really worth that much? Hadn’t it caused enough problems? If he’d been less proud, he wouldn't have felt pressured to accompany Zakir and Sanjay to Draferia when his courage and integrity came into question.

  He’d still be home.

  No, he thought bitterly. He’d still be living a lie, blissful though it might be.

  “Where can I find Agent Colmenero?” he asked, his refusal to immediately leave a silent form of rebellion.

  Callum studied him. “He’s on the compound. Go to the first conference room down the hall. I’ll send him there.”

  Loken had practically memorized the file by the time Agent Colmenero joined him. The balding man—which seemed to be more of a fashion statement than a testament to his age—held out a photo.

  “You gonna use some voodoo to find Shane?” Colmenero asked while Loken examined the photo. It was of Shane Arndt and an elderly woman with short, white hair and a soft smile.

  Having no idea what voodoo was, Loken offhandedly said, “Something like that,” before placing the photograph flat on the table. Focused on the task at hand, he ignored Colmenero’s questions and began to work the spell. Tracing a rune on the back of the photograph—to which the other agent in the room protested—he set the focus of the spell and fed it power, willing his magic to find the man the object was connected to.

  An image came to mind, slowly at first. It built until he felt as though he was standing before it. The building meant nothing to Loken. He didn’t recognize it or the surrounding landscape, but that wasn’t surprising.

  “I have a location,” he said as the image faded, the spell completed.

  “Yeah?” Though Colmenero looked skeptical, he couldn’t conceal the glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Where?”

  Where indeed. Loken was left with a dilemma. He could teleport to the location easily, which is what he’d often done in the past. Short of that, he wasn’t terribly sure how to show the humans where their missing comrade was. If given a map, perhaps he could pinpoint the coordinates...but why waste the time and effort?

  “Meet me in Agent Callum’s office. I’ll show you both there,” he lied, pretending to busy himself with gathering the papers from the file.

  Colmenero nodded, and as soon as he left, Loken flicked the lights off with a touch of magic—just in case there were cameras watching—and teleported to the building he’d seen in his vision.

  The location turned out to be a highly secure building in a rather rural area. It appeared more residential than business, but that was all he could tell from the outside. Loken wasn’t concerned. He snuck past the iron gates, the guard dogs, and onto the property without issue. There were armed guards patrolling the land, but Loken easily avoided them as he made his way to the main structure. Shadowing a car as it drove down the long driveway, he slipped into the secure, underground garage unseen.

  Carefully veiled, he watched as one guard stepped forward to open the car door and studied the man that stepped out, gauging from the body language of those present that he was of importance. Loken had never seen a white suit before, but it was clearly a style this man enjoyed, if his matching off-white fedora was any indication. Though not good at estimating a human’s age, Loken could tell this man was middle-aged, and he wore the years with proud dignity, like battle scars. His face was hardened, but he gave the attendant a smile.

  “Is everything ready?” the white-suited man asked, handing the attendant his coat.

  “Yes, Mr. Maganti. He’s waiting for you in the office.”

  “Excellent.” Mr. Maganti removed his fedora and placed it atop his coat, revealing a buzzcut.

  “Shall we?” Maganti said, strolling forward. When he headed through the door and into the main part of the building, three of the men followed.

  Loken trailed them at a distance, wanting to see if the missing agent was the one waiting for Maganti. If so, was he here unwillingly? Or was it a trap for ALPHA? Perhaps the agent was plotting with this man? Without jumping to definite conclusions, Loken followed on light feet. Used to slipping in and out of rooms unseen—both as a misbehaving child and later as a working spy—he was able to maintain flawless silence as he did. They walked down a long hallway and paused in the threshold of a moderately sized room.

  Tied to a chair in the center of it was the missing agent. Loken recognized him from the file, and he looked as if he’d seen better days. His lip was split, his left eye was swollen shut, and he looked like he was clinging to consciousness by a thread.

  Maganti didn’t spare Agent Arndt a glance. He walked past him, pulled out a bottle of amber liquid from the desk, and poured a glass.

  Loken watched from the doorway, noting the positions of the guards even as he waited for Maganti’s power play to end. It gave Loken much insight—that he felt the need to intimidate a bound and helpless foe.

  “I don’t care to have my business meddled with,” Maganti said once he set down the glass. “This is the second time in a month I’ve found myself at odds with your handlers. I think ALPHA requires a message. Tell me, which piece of you will make my point crystal clear?”

  Arndt didn’t reply, and Loken knew he’d have to act soon. Maganti wasn’t posturing for his prisoner, he realized. He was posturing for his men, and an execution was eminent. After disobeying a direct order, nothing short of returning Arndt alive would pacify ALPHA. Besides, Loken was determined never to fail another mission. He had to cement his place in ALPHA by proving himself invaluable.

  There were four guards. One on either side of Maganti, one near Arndt, and one outside the door to Loken’s right.

  Loken ran through a few possibilities as he pulled his daggers from his voidspace. Predicting that they would likely use guns, as most humans did, he cast a soundproofing spell on the room so that what was to come wouldn’t draw the attention of more guards.

  Then, dropping the veil, he acted. He chose to slit the throat of the guard in the doorway, not wishing to waste the valuable second it would take to unbury his dagger from the man’s skull. In motion before his first target crumbled to the ground, Loken teleported to the man near Arndt. Appearing behind him, he thrust forward and killed the fool before he ever knew Loken was there. Turning on heel, he whipped one dagger at each of the last two guards. They fell like statues, and Loken turned to his final target. When he leaped onto the desk, Maganti jerked backwards until his back hit the wall behind him, likely expecting an attack. However, Loken merely crouched down until they were eye level.

  “I’d think long and hard before you take another agent hostage,” Loken all but purred. “You might slip and target one I like.”

  Maganti’s furious expression turned cold. “Are you new to this games? Or just daft?”

  Loken laughed, willing to bet that would aggravate Maganti even more. “Apologies. I thought you were attempting to be humorous. Please, do feel free to continue.”

  With a calculating look, Maganti said, “You’d make an excellent soldier, boy. If not for that mouth of yours.”

  With a wink, Loken coyly replied, “Oh? You prefer quiet obedience? Is that so your bed partners can’t share their complaints?” When he sensed weakness, he drove home the blade with vicious satisfaction, a
nd he’d pegged this man as egotistical. Everything from his fancy suit to his luxurious lair screamed it.

  Disappointingly, Maganti didn’t react. Loken was above pouting, but that didn’t mean he was above killing him.

  An explosion of pain shot through his chest, and he saw Maganti smirk victoriously before he had a chance to react. Loken turned in time to see guards pouring into the room, their weapons pointed at him. Knowing a losing battle when he saw it, he teleported to Arndt (ignoring the renewed burst of pain in his chest), grabbed the now unconscious man, and teleported back to the ALPHA compound.

  Chapter 4

  Loken made an irritated sound as the short, female scientist adjusted the sticky pads that were arranged across his head. It was no more dignified than the other tests she’d performed over the course of a week. Doctor Penny Garza had theorized that his magic could be detected and understood, and in punishment for his blatant disregard for Callum’s directs orders, Loken was indefinitely assigned to be a test subject. More accurately, he’d been removed from field work for his disobedience and then assigned to the lab for refusing to divulge how he’d gotten to and from Agent Arndt’s location within an hour.

  With what little bargaining power he had, he’d been adamant that Nora not be allowed in the same lab while he was present. Callum hadn’t been pleased with that stipulation, but Loken had been unwilling to budge.

  Thus entered the second reason for his misery.

  “Cheer up, Merlin!” Danika chimed as she helped re-secure a sticky pad to his right temple. “It could be worse. You could be running on a hamster wheel.”

  As much as he wanted to give her an incredulously disgusted look—what in the universe was a hamster?—he didn’t so much as glance at her. His current plan was to ignore Danika’s attempts to engage him. Eventually, he theorized, she’d grow bored. So, he allowed her to finish fixing the pad, a mastered look of resigned indifference on his face.

  The entire week had been an exercise in restraint and patience. Trying to regain ALPHA’s confidence, he’d attempted to be as tolerant as possible of their exams and tests. Balancing his privacy with furthering his agenda to endear himself to them was difficult. At least, he mused, the bullet wound had healed well before the physical examination commenced.

  A man with green-tinted brown eyes, half hidden behind glasses, had entered the private examination room and introduced himself as Doctor Jeremy Valdes. “Call me Jeremy, if you don’t mind,” he’d added, unimposing despite his above-average build, as if he purposely held himself to appear harmless. It reminded Loken of the healers back home—men and women defined by their kindness and dedication to their profession. Like the other scientists that worked for ALPHA, he’d worn a white lab coat, but unlike those Loken had seen in passing glances, Jeremy didn’t look at him like he might attack them at any moment.

  That alone didn’t give Loken reason to trust Jeremy, of course.

  “Before we start, I need to make sure you understand that the results of today’s exam will be on record with ALPHA, accessible by Agent Callum and his superiors. Any questions?”

  “Hm. What’s that?” Loken had asked curiously, gesturing to the device around Jeremy’s neck.

  Jeremy had blinked. “This? It’s a stethoscope. It’ll let me hear your heartbeat.”

  “Can humans discern much from that alone?”

  Those apparently hadn’t been the types of inquiries Jeremy had been expecting.

  “Well, it allows doctors to hear a patient's lungs and heart, among other things.”

  So, the device amplified sound, but that hadn’t been the most interesting part of what Loken had learned. If Jeremy knew where to look for Loken’s heart and lungs, than ALPHA had to have conducted tests on him while he was unconscious.

  Even in the present, Loken shuddered at the thought.

  Still, as helpful as he was trying to be, there were questions he’d declined to answer.

  “Age?”

  “Only nine hundred forty-three Earth years.”

  Jeremy furrowed his brows, clearly trying to decide if Loken was jesting. “Okay. You know what? Let’s just start the physical.”

  Overall, the examination hadn’t been an unpleasant experience, but Loken had declined to provide blood. Besides, he wasn’t naive enough to believe they hadn’t taken a sample while he was unconscious and at their mercy.

  “Alright, Lyall,” Doctor Garza said in the present. No, Penny. She’d requested to be called Penny, which puzzled him because he noticed she insisted on the title with others. “Try a simple spell that doesn’t break anything.”

  Loken hid a smirk at her choice of words. On the first day, when she’d prompted him to “cast a spell,” he’d made every light bulb in the room shatter, taking away precious time from that session. Loken counted that as a win.

  After some thought, he summoned a flame to hand, palm upturned.

  Penny made a thoughtful sound that he ignored in favor of finding out what Danika was cooing at. Ah, the little lizard. It watched them from a nearby lab bench with independently mobile eyes. Beside it was a plate of half-eaten grubs that Danika had provided.

  Loken tore his gaze away, not wanting to invite Danika’s attention. He had stopped asking her questions about the beast after she insisted that it wanted to spend time with “his daddy.”

  What a ridiculous woman.

  “Okay,” Penny said. “So, I really think I’m going to need to clear an fMRI with Callum.”

  Danika looked up from the lizard. “What? Why? Is he okay?”

  Loken glowered at being discussed as if he wasn’t in the room.

  “Oh, he’s fine. It’s just, without knowing how his brain compares to the human brain, I have no way of knowing what part he is actively using when casting magic.”

  Danika narrowed one eye. “How’s that gonna help measure his magic?”

  Penny looked sheepish. “Well, it isn’t. I just…”

  “Fell down a rabbit hole, huh?”

  Penny let out a guilty sigh.

  Loken startled them when he spoke, so he knew they’d forgotten he was present. “As the resident subject of study, I’m going to have to decline.”

  “Wait. It’s no more invasive than the EEG,” Penny said hastily.

  Not invasive, she claimed. It only gave her a more in-depth look at his brain. No, thanks. Loken had no idea what the machine did or what its limits were, and he didn’t trust them to be honest. He’d research it on his own and revisit the matter then. He was disinclined to provide them with even more tools to use against him, so he tried to be selective about what he allowed and didn’t. Despite Callum’s orders to be in the lab, he wasn’t under any obligation to submit to tests against his will.

  In the end, Loken gave her an unimpressed look.

  Penny’s expression faltered. Unlike Nora, she seemed rather intimidated by Loken. Which was why, he surmised, Danika was also present. Callum had good awareness of his people’s strengths and flaws. Penny was a brilliant scientist, but she was wary of him.

  “Be nice,” Danika chided him. “No one has ever studied an alien’s brain before. It’s like a neurologist’s dream. Let us have our dreams!” Exaggerated drama punctuated her statement, but then she looked thoughtful. “Even though Penny is a physicist…Still. Let her have this!”

  Loken gave her a flat look. “No.”

  Danika threw up her hands and turned to Penny. “I tried.”

  Penny rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I guess we can get back on track.”

  They did so, but by the end of her shift that day, Penny was no closer to finding a way to detect and then measure his magic. He’d demonstrated countless spells, all simple, but she was adamant that there had to be a scientific explanation. “Just because we don’t yet understand it doesn’t mean we never can,” she’d said. Despite the lack of progress, she’d discarded some theories and made new ones, remaining positive through the frustration.

  As Loken exited the lab t
hat night, Danika dashed to his side. “Hey, wait! Do you want to join me and Smaug for dinner? There’s pie.” She mentioned the dessert with a sing-song voice.

  It was, for batum, what she asked him each night. Pretending to look intrigued, he said, “What a convincing proposition.” Only to quickly add a harsh, “No.”

  Danika seemed unfazed, the lizard cradled carefully in her arms. “I hear you, Merlin. I hear you. Let me rephrase that. Hey! Do you wanna join me and Smaug for pie? Dinner included!”

  “Well, when you put it that way...No.”

  Despite his irritated tone, Danika continued to shadow him as he walked to his apartment.

  “So, you ever gonna tell me what you did to get your agent status suspended?”

  He made a noncommittal sound and kept walking.

  “Must be pretty bad.”

  “Bad enough to get assigned to the lab, you mean?” Loken said curtly. “My, I had no idea you think so little of yourself. Do agents often get assigned to be locked in the lab with you?”

  Danika grinned. “Usually one agent every month. Word quickly spreads,” she joked. “Anyway, at least give me a hint. On a scale of ‘I killed a guy I wasn’t supposed to kill’ to ‘I accidentally got my partner killed on the mission.’ Which is it?”

  Loken rolled his eyes. “Must someone have died?”

  “Guess not, but I don’t think Callum would have reacted like this if all you did was summon another adorable, mutant lizard.”

  The ‘mutant lizard’ in her arms turned one of its eyes on Loken.

  She had a point about its mutant status. Though based on a common species found on Rellaeria, it wasn’t quite right. For one, he’d made it many times smaller, and he’d taken away its venom. Apparently, that had given it the ability to breathe fire in short bursts.

  Suddenly, Loken was intrigued by his creation.

  “Point taken,” he replied at last, dismissing his musings on the lizard. Then, wondering if she’d believe him, he nonchalantly added, “I made a Callum-doppelganger and used it to get into a restricted area of the compound.”